Access & Equity

I am old enough that I remember when CD's and the Internet really started gaining popularity. I was in 6th grade when my older brother brought home a CD that he'd picked up somewhere (Tower Records, probably), that had the music video for No Doubt's "Just A Girl" on it. The computer labs of my high school had old, boxy IBM computers that really only had two programs on them (besides a word processor), Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, and Oregon Trail. (As a high school student, I was VERY prepared for, and worried about both crossing rivers, and Dysentery).

I feel lucky to have been raised in a time when the Internet didn't permeate every level of our existence. I remember using encyclopedias to do book reports, and not having any idea what Wikipedia was. I think this duality of experiences has given me the respect for both. That is to say, I respect the older way of researching or interacting with others before the Internet was so prevalent, but I still appreciate the convenience that it's brought to our lives.

Although it's hard for us to imagine our lives without social media specifically, and the Internet in general, there are many places in the world where these things are restricted or not accessible.

Week 11/12 Social Media in Education

As someone who both remembers taking a typing class in high school (with the aid of impossibly bulky IBM computers), and has a (now retired) teacher for a father, I have mixed feelings about the usage of social media in education. I think that done well, the use of social media as a teaching tool can serve to draw responses and engagement out of students who might not normally feel comfortable speaking up in class. However, done poorly, I feel that all that's accomplished is to drive a larger wedge between student and educator. As an introvert, I generally love online classes, and abhor group work. That being said, sometimes I see educators using social media to merely fill the necessary space in the syllabus, requiring tweets and posts with little to no regard for why these methods might be employed in the first place. Social media being an ever-changing field, one that continues to evolve and grow as more people participate in its creation, I'm optimistic that the longer it's in use, the better educators will learn how to best utilize it as a tool for learning/teaching. I see social media having a much more natural and positive role within organizations than in an institution of learning. Using analytics, web teams can use social media as a boost for marketing, in order to see what the demographic of their key engagements are, and explore ways in which to better draw people in. In this emerging field, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and fear the whole "Big Brother" aspect that social media can invoke, but the more people learn how to protect themselves and their online identities from unwanted attention, I think the better we'll adjust to this ever-present online presence. It should also be said, that with user generated content, in order to have a hand in shaping the development of these emerging tools, each person has the responsibility to educate themselves and participate accordingly.

Social Media & Activism

This week we learned about advocacy and activism, and how how the tools of social media can be utilized to further a cause. Although I don't particularly see the challenge in differentiating "advocacy" from "activism," I found the "Why Social Media is Reinventing Activism" article interesting. I completely understand why the concept of "slactivism" has been brought up in the context of social media campaigns. It can be irritating at times, when you log into your chosen social media platform to find a feed littered with post after post of people seemingly jumping on a bandwagon to promote one cause or another. The recent "Ice Bucket Challenge" comes to mind as one of the recent culprits. It's clear that using social media to further a cause is an idea that's still in its infancy, and I look forward to the better refined techniques that are surely coming to us in the future.

The readings this week made me think back to a campaign I launched at work, in partnership with the Butte Humane Society. Animal welfare is a cause that's really important to me, and I wanted to use my job at the clothing company to help the BHS in any way I could. I launched a spring lookbook for our site, which featured our models with some of the dogs that were up for adoption at BHS. BHS also promoted our lookbook on their site and all their social media platforms. We also donated a percentage of all our sales for the month of February to them, and featured the lookbook with the dogs on the front page of our site. It was useful for us, as it prompted more sales from locals who wanted to support BHS, as well as helping show the business in a positive light, as one that was concerned with promoting local charitable associations.

I'd love to work again to help promote a local nonprofit, something like Catalyst or something along those lines. I think it's important to recognize the possibility of mutually beneficial campaigns that are helpful to all parties involved, as well as having a positive effect in our community.

Week 6:

This week we looked at various social media tools which are geared around helping people create and manage content on the Internet. Regarding which tools I think might be best for the audience of my blog, I feel that both Hootsuite and Canva would be beneficial. Hootsuite was mentioned in both lists of social media tools, although I noticed that Canva didn't make either list.

Hootsuite is a dashboard of sorts from which you can manage your various social media platforms like Twitter, Google +, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest. This is helpful when you work in fashion, as having a unified brand across all fronts is important. We use pictures from our sponsored posts on fashion bloggers pages, then use a bitly link to shorten and customize our links, and share them across all platforms. This can be done easily by using a tool like Hootsuite to post all from one place. The downside is that you can't post pictures to show up as pictures on Twitter, but it's still a very valuable, helpful tool. I think Hootsuite is a tool that's becoming increasingly used, but I think as time goes on we will see a lot of much more user-friendly, streamlined tools that do the same thing but better. The tool does support group collaboration, as multiple people can sign in and use the same account of Hootsuite all at once, to interact with people, post content, like and share posts, etc.

Canva is another really great tool, it's a free site that lets you create content for presentations, emails, posters, Facebook posts, business cards, etc. It's like Photoshop for people who don't know how to use Photoshop. With a very user-friendly design and (mostly) free cost of using, it's an excellent tool to create customized content that looks professional and will look the same across all platforms. I've been using Canva to create content for a while now, mostly for my job as a copywriter/content creator, and for my internship at a publishing company. With either tool, it's helpful for interacting with people. With Hootsuite it's helpful for interacting directly with users, from one easy-to-see dashboard, and with Canva it's good for looking professional when you interact with customers, and present media for them to see.

Post #3: User Generated Content

• How has user generated content impacted journalism, publishing, design, or other media? 

In terms of how user generated content has affected me in my work, my answer is two-fold. First, as the blogger relations manager, my workplace directly benefits from user generated content. When we send fashion bloggers merchandise, they style an outfit and link back to us in the post, while also adding their post to all their social media platforms like Lookbook, Chictopia, Instagram, etc. One such blogger we've worked with often is Amy of A Fashion Nerd. When it comes to my job as the blogger relations manager, I'd say the result has been positive. 

My second thought about how user generated content has affected me professionally, has to do with my other job as a staff columnist for Synthesis Weekly. I've been writing for them for the past seven years, and because of that I'm on a lot of press lists. I get press releases from record companies and musicians, and even in my time at Synthesis, I can say with confidence that the market for music has become more flooded than ever. With the accessibility and ease of music editing software, and how simple its become to put ones music online, we are reaching a saturation point in the music industry. It's good in a way, because up-and-coming musicians have the ability to have their music heard by a larger audience. However, because of the saturated market, it's become increasingly more difficult for them to break through and heard above the "noise" of the rest of the Internet. In that regard, I'd say it's made my job to seek out and find musicians that I'd like to profile, more difficult. 

As far as how user generated content has impacted journalism and other media-heavy fields, I would say that as we are nearing a full saturation point of the Internet with media, I think consumers are becoming more educated about how to drown out the white noise of media that they aren't interested in. I also think that being aware of this high saturation means that we bear some responsibility in shaping the direction of how we want the Internet to evolve. 

Post 2: Relationships

This week I wanted to focus on relationships in a social media setting between individuals and companies within the fashion industry. Last week I gave an overview, and went into a bit of detail regarding some of my practices as the senior copywriter for a local clothing company. From the readings, I learned about the term "social capital," which refers to the networks of relationships between those who live and/or work in a society. Reading about this concept made me think about the relationships which exist via social media between the so-called "leaders" of the fashion world (whether that be designers, corporate clothing companies, fashion bloggers, etc), and the subscribers to these messages.

Although fashion is most certainly cyclical, it's still interesting to watch trends develop. Which trends survive and continue (like distressed denim, for example), and which dwindle and die off (crimped hair and Loony Toons characters printed on ties), is something that's either aided or hindered in no small part by social media, and how skillfully the "tastemakers" can sway public opinion. Without the masses who populate social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Chictopia, Lookbook and Twitter, members of the fashion industry would need to work a lot harder to set the tone and focus of the conversation. Much like social media, which runs on user generated content, the fashion industry could not exist without the active participation of the public. As explained in the readings, "social media has the potential to dramatically improve the inner workings of every company." I feel this is especially true in the fashion industry, as so much of social media is about how you wish to appear to others. Choices are made as to how you'd like to physically appear (profile pictures), and the parts of your personality you'd like to showcase or present, which is displayed through status updates, tweets, etc. So much of our online presence is so carefully curated through a painstaking process of highlighting our successes (as we see them), and attempting to disguise or hide our failures.

Besides the physical act of going to a storefront and purchasing apparel from fashion retailers or designers, there are many ways in which subscribers can show their commitment to their desired brand. Obviously that's the clear-cut goal of the fashion-oriented businesses, but engaging the viewers/followers and enticing them to care can be achieved a number of ways with the help of social media. Hashtags which correlate to different days of the week is one such way this is accomplished. For example, fashion retailers might post content for #TBT (throwback Thursday), in which they can show a retro style, or photos from an older photoshoot in an effort to show the longevity of the company, while stirring feelings of nostalgia within the engaged viewers/readers.

With my own job I'm asked to work every day to discover new ways we can utilize social media in order to build relationships with our customers (and potential customers). I feel a good way to do this is to make sure the brand is clearly defined. A target demographic should be established, with information about the education level, income level, etc that will help the employees be more easily able to generate content that the customers will identify with. In failing to do so, the retailer will become a faceless brand which won't stick out in the customer's mind.

It's also important to be actively engaged through social media platforms like Linkedin with other individuals who share my goals or interests, in order to build social capital which will benefit me later in life. (Probably sooner rather than later). As a senior at Chico State, I'll be graduating soon, and although I have many years of work experience in a wide range of fields, the job market is an ever-increasingly competitive place. It's important to me to tether myself through digital platforms to any and all entities I'm interested in and think could be an area of interest in the future. For instance, as an avid reader of VICE, and watcher of the HBO show The VICE Guide To Travel, I feel the aesthetic, mission statement and message are extremely in line with my own. It's therefore important to follow the development of this company and its ventures through the use of social media.

Introduction

I am someone who currently works in the fashion industry, and although my job centers largely around social media, I still feel there are many things to learn. For this blog I'd like to explore how different fashion companies, and the companies whose businesses depend largely on them rely on social media. For instance, I'm interested in the different low-cost ways that clothing companies can grow interest in their businesses. At my current job as the Senior Copywriter at For Elyse, I started a Blogger Relations Program to do just that. I maintain a contact list of over 300 fashion bloggers, many of whom we work with on a regular basis. Generally I send a blogger an item of clothing, and in return they style an outfit featuring the piece from FE, linking back to us in their post. Sharing the post across all their social media platforms, we get more traffic and followers/click-throughs, and it's far cheaper than advertising. If the blogger wears the gifted item more than once (which they often do), they're required to again link to us, which gives our mention on their blog more longevity than a standard ad would have. 

Some of my favorite fashion blogs to work with and/or follow are Keiko Lynn, A Beautiful Mess, A Fashion Nerd, and Shy Girl Loud Voice. Although I already know quite a bit about SEO and how to build a solid Blogger Relations Program, I'm excited to push myself to learn more about this ever-expanding field. Social media is an entity that has only grown in popularity in the last few years, and I feel like the more I can do to learn about how fashion-related companies use platforms to their advantage, the more of an asset I will be to any company I work with.